


Midnight Study Hour

by grumblecakes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:42:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6439708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumblecakes/pseuds/grumblecakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione has tried every tick and tip she's read about to improve Harry's study habits. Anxiety, fear, and not least of all teenage hormones have left Harry listless and without motivation. Life under a sword of damocles renders to do lists and threats of detention rather impotent. It's not for nothing Hermione is the brightest witch of her age. She has one last gambit to perk up the boy who lived's spirits (among other things), and by the end, perhaps, they'll both learn something. If about nothing else but themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Study Hour

“If you don’t stop leaving your work to the last minute like this you’ll fail the year.”  


This was not the usual carping from Hermione, genuine emotion in her voice pleaded for him to listen. Despite that, or because of it, Harry felt a spike of anger in his chest, where it mingled with shame and fear. A cocktail that was familiar to him, easily drawn to the surface of late.  


“Do you think I want this? I’m not doing it on purpose, alright!” His words rang out through the empty common room. Suddenly so childish to him now that they were spoken. He raked a hand through his hair, his brilliantly green eyes wide, rimmed slightly in red. Inadvertently it exposed his scar, which stood out vivid against skin paler than it should have been. Hermione winced and looked away. More shame flooded him, enough to blunt the rage. Harry was tired of yelling, especially at her. It always was her, she was the only one who really called him out. She cared enough to not spare him and that put her at ground zero for every one of his outbursts. It wasn’t fair to her. He breathed deep, trying to purge the knot of fury in his chest.  


“There’s just… so much going on,” Harry said eventually, weary now that the anger had left him. “I sit down and look at the parchment and my eyes just blur. I start thinking about Voldemort and… and how none of this matters. People are dieing, will die. Could be me next. Or you.”  


It was late, and as usual Harry was the last awake in Gryffindor tower, struggling to reduce the stack of homework that only seemed to grow larger. But tonight Hermione stayed with him.  
She always tried her best to help, short of doing the work for him. He needed to learn it after all, and you never could know what would help you in the fight against the dark arts. If anything homework was more important than ever. She said as much to him, but it only cause him to cringe and more panic edged into his voice.  


"I know, I know. I try. I really do. Everyone is holding my hand and pulling me forward. Everyone wants me to be better than I am. But... I dunno. The closer people get, the more alone I feel.” He paused and, reflecting on what he must sound like to her, he gave a derisive snort. “Sorry. I'm just being a self absorbed prick, I know. I ju-"

"Stop, Harry. Stop. This is just the stress talking. You're amazing. You just lack... focus." This was a long time coming. Hermione had been turning the problem over most of the year, researching and implementing study tips and tricks from every source she could find. None had worked. She needed something to incentivise him, give him some reason to push forward that wasn't tied into the very stress that sapped his motivation. She could think only this one encouragement to offer him he couldn't just buy or get from Ron. In desperation she had borrowed some of Lavender's magazines for ideas. Their tips and tricks had little to do with studying, but they did provide… inspiration. Lavender had even caught her thumbing through them one evening. After a faux-scandalized gasp, and some frank attempts at girlfriend to girlfriend gossip in which Hermione was supremely outclassed, she wheedled enough hints to get the gist of Hermione’s plan. It was... uncomfortable. The knowing glances Parvati and Lavander gave her at breakfast the next day hadn't helped, either.  
It had taken some groundwork, but now it came to this one last attempt. All her flirts and innuendos had slid off him unnoticed, despite Lavander's surefire tips. She should have known. He needed something… direct.  


Her courage faltered as she opened her mouth to say it, but then, seeing him so miserable and close to tears with the anxiety of it all...  


"How about, we try a system," she said brightly. "It should give you a goal to work towards, and the reward will reduce tension, creating a positivity loop that will bring success!" Her brain cringed. That sounded like a line from the front of a text book. Nervousness always made her slightly clinical. Not exactly the tone to get passions fired up.  


"No, offense Hermione, but I've tried your systems before."  


"Not this one.” Her voice squeaked a bit, but she thought she managed some genuine warmth. Harry turned to her, his eyes narrowed in confusion at her fidgeting.  


"Is there something wrong?" They way he switched from his own anxiety to concern caused a well of affection that she seized on for nerve. She let something of that affection show on her face, and in her tone. _Quick now, before you lose your nerve._  


"No, Harry. This system, er, has some rewards you're not used to, I think.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. Harry froze in shock. She didn't pull back far, instead kissing him again, deeper this time, but still brief enough that his confused brain had no time to decide to return it or push her away.  


"S-sexual... rewards." The phrase felt awkward to say, and the tingle that spread over her body didn't help her elocution. It was as weird for Harry to hear, a jolt that rebooted his brain. With it came a deep red flush of warmth.  


"Oh, er..." He tried on a fake grin. It must have been a joke. He crossed his legs and turned to his homework.  


"Well I better finish this right away then, huh," he tried in a lame attempt to play along with the joke. An awkward silence stretched as his quill scratched at the parchment. Harry's mind was consumed, as he wrote, by the kiss. The joke. A joke shouldn’t make his heart beat like that, his stomach flip in excitement, his... well it shouldn't do all that. His mind desperately tried, and failed, to tell his body that what it thought was happening wasn’t. They way she leaned into him as they read over his work together didn't help. Not the jolt of excitement when their hands touched, or the heat of her breath as she offered suggestions to him.  
Time flew by. He groped around mentally for the best way to play it all off. He couldn't act like he didn't fancy her, that'd be an insult. But he couldn't seem too eager or she'd think that he thought she was serious. When there was no more to write he cleared his throat.  


"Well that’s that." He failed to make eye contact as he pulled away and turned to her, but he put on that false grin. "The kiss did the trick. I'll be heading to bed now."  


Hermione gave a deflated, "Oh." She laced her fingers together tight. "I suppose. I'm not that attractive of course, but I had thought..."  


Her words sapped the momentum from his attempt to stand. He fell back into his chair and chuckled uncertainly, completely at a loss. A look of shame and regret passed over her face.

"Oh, I'm sorry Harry. I didn't mean to guilt you. I just thought, since it has been so long since Cho... and I had read... well it's quite fine if you don't want to. Really."  


"Hermione." He finally dropped all pretense of the joke. "I've always said you're pretty."  


It had been as one friend to another, however. Pretty was not quite the same as attractive. But something in that word she said before stuck with him as he looked at her now. _That_ word. Sexual. It changed everything, past and present. It added a whole new dimension to her. Something he'd always seen, but with now with an added depth.  


"Well,” she said faintly. “You're very fanciable yourself, I've said so too. So, if you want the reward..." Time stretched out.  


Harry looked at her lips, pink and soft, parting slightly as she breathed. Her chest rose and fell with those breaths. The curve of breasts against her robes, now that his attention were drawn to them, almost impossible not to notice. It seemed everywhere he looked on her was something to excite him in this new context. The last of these were her eyes, knowing and clear, seeming to slice open his mind and lay all its filthy thoughts bare, shivering in the exposed air of her attention. He looked away, as if that would protect him. Then he felt a hand on his lap, just above his knee.  
It was like a switch flipped, his already thickening cock swelled almost painfully, his breath shortened. He looked back into her eyes and found he wanted her to see his mind, to know the thoughts that played there. It opened a connection, and as she gazed back he thought he could see some of her thoughts in turn. The anticipation. The longing. Nothing could have prepared him for the aphrodisiac of wanting someone and then knowing, without a doubt, they wanted you too. Fear, anger, shame, it all left him. For the first time, maybe in years, he was free of doubt.  
There was nothing but her eyes, her lips, her breasts. She leaned in and he matched her movement. The one last shred of hesitancy in him snapped, and he pushed in aggressively, his lips on hers in an even deeper kiss than before. Tongues met at the same moment his fingertips brushed over her covered nipples, and hers ran up his thigh. The kiss never broke as he pulled at her robes and top, and she shrugged them off with a roll of her shoulder. At Lavender's passing suggestion she hadn’t wore a bra. The fire had dimmed, leaving a low light and chill air. Her nipples hardened even more as that air touched them, tingled as Harry's thumb tested their stiffness. She moaned into his mouth, signaling him on. Her palm traced the outline of his hardness through his jeans, drawing a groan from him in turn. Table legs grated on the floor as Harry pushed her back into it, his idle hand swatting at the books and scrolls ignorantly in their way.  


"Harry," she breathed in one of the rare moments their lips separated, "the ink. Don't ruin your homework." He laughed, genuinely this time, his forehead pressed on hers. It should have been awkward, should have broke the spell that had taken them. It was so real, so much Hermione, that it only added a familiar touch of fondness to the fire of passion. He broke off and gathered the ink and parchment up carefully as she stood and shifted behind him.  
When he turned back around he barely stifled a gasp. She had taken off the rest of her clothes, her head crooked in anticipation at his reaction. It seemed to please. Her whole body was flushed despite that the embers of the fire were lower than ever. Harry couldn't help but drink it all in dumbly. Curled brown hair framed her blushing grin and bare shoulders, and as she stepped forward the sway of her hips caused his intestines to tie into a knot and his penis twitch.  


Hermione paused only once. Harry's avid and hungry face had finally purged the last of the remaining strings of shyness holding her back. She continued her swagger forward.  


"Now yours, Harry," she said in a voice unlike any she had heard herself use. It wasn't a command, it wasn't a plea. She had done plenty of bossing and pleading before. This was raw desire. It surprised her, how much she wanted him. Not even she had noticed the silent building of tension as they had worked on his essay together. Now that tension was loosening, and it threatened overwhelm them in a sudden torrent.  
She did not track the path of the robe as it fluttered to the common room floor, but she did follow his hands as they unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off, then to unfastening his jeans. Calloused, but not thick. Agile, seeker’s hands. As goose flesh tightened over abs and chest, she hooked her thumbs in the waist of his underwear. She slid them slowly over his hips, felt them catch on his cock briefly before it pulled free, bouncing free and erect, uncovered at last. It was Harry's turn to back up into the desk, now thumping tight to the wall as she grabbed his length and sidled up for another kiss. Hermione felt him throb in her hand as their lips touched, causing her own heart to pound in kind. Her hand gave a tentative pump and felt the wetness of his precum. She jerked again, and then again, smiling around his groaning mouth, loving the lustful energy radiating off him to mingle with hers. With the sudden onset of pleasure Harry’s hands had grown idle. Easily fixed. She lifted the right and laid it on her breast, squeezing once to give him the idea. He took it from there, his other sliding down her hip and gripping her ass, letting those rough callouses, paired with the clever softness of his fingertips, set her panting. Joined passions filled her, a tingling spreading from his touch, running through her mind and body, curling around her clit.

Hermione stood up on the tips of her toes and tilted forward, unable to hold back one second more. Harry took her weight and fell back onto the desk. Wetness trailed as she slid up his form, grinding on him. Knees found the desk edge and straddled his hips, her hand gave one last pump as it angled his swollen dick into her wet and waiting pussy. It slid in gradually, one long thrill of pleasure, until they stopped. Time and space vanished for them both. There was only the feeling of that union. It felt so right to have him inside her, and her around him. They held it for a moment, shuddering and panting. Then the motion started, slow at first, their hips seeking an accord with each other. Then, as they found it, the pace quickened, thrusting together. Hermione arced downward, curling around his plunging dick. Breasts bounced above Harry, calling to him. He leaned up and took a nipple in his mouth, sucking and pulling lightly with his teeth. The pace increased some more. Their pelvises began to touch, the thump-thump-thump filling ears and thoughts. Each smack set a pulse from Hermione’s clit to her throat, released for now only as a groan of pleasure. Harry’s little noises were coming faster, even as his tongue darted and flicked, and she knew he was close. So was she, she was ready the moment he entered her.

"Harry," she keened, her voice high. Not a plead. Not a command. Raw desire.  


She squeezed around his dick, a shaking filled her from core to limbs. Her shivering hand cupped his cheek and tilted his face to her eyes as she came, seeking that connection, that bridge between them that started it all. They saw eachother's minds once again, shared the pure pleasure and release. Harry groaned throatily as Hermione's knees clamped him down, his cock pulsing inside her, spurting come even as she still quaked.  
Then there was silence. Both of their muscles relaxed, and they just lay there holding each other, their panting and the occasional twitch the only noise after the creaking cacophony.

Sometime later, their scattered garments fetched and donned, Harry began throwing his things into his bag.  


"Well then." Hermione said coming up from behind. She simply squeezed him around the waist, her chin on his shoulder. "That was a good effort tonight." Lips touched his ear. "We'll see tomorrow if becomes a habit."  


They both knew, as she pulled away, that all was not healed. Harry's anxiety and anger and fear all would be back. But they knew, too, that they had discovered something. Hermione had not seen it going quite so far, but now that it had she didn't think she wanted to go back. They had crossed a threshold, and Harry knew as bad as it got, a part of her warmth was in him permanently. Hermione smiled and walked up the girl's stairs, and Harry the boys. Separate again, but not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in ages. And its erotic, of course. Sometimes it takes a bit of smut to get the creative juices flowing again. Eh? Eh? I could go on I think, if the inspiration holds.


End file.
